A Lesson in Empathy
by Balrog Roike
Summary: Starscream has finally suceeded. He has bested Megatron and is the new Supreme Commander of the Decepticon army. Everything is just perfect - or it would be, if there wouldn't be a really tiny problem....
1. Everything starts with an end

_Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers. Period. T_T_

_AN: I knew I said that I wouldn't write any new stories until I finished my "28" stories, but I couldn't resist beginning this little story here.  
It's easy, it will be without deadline (as if I would respects deadlines anyway) and it will be fluffy, if I manage.  
So have fun with the newest plot drifting through my mind._

_Thanks to mdnytryder for correcting this chapter. You rock!!!_

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1. Everything starts with an end

Everything starts with an end.

If it is the ending of an era, just the end of an hour or simply the ending of the status quo. Before something can truly begin, something else has to end.

Period.

* * *

This time, the end was the death of a legend, the glorious Supreme Commander of the infamous Decepticon army, Megatron.

And the one who brought about that, was, surprisingly or not depending on who you asked about it, his Second in Command, Starscream.

It was Soundwave who first noticed that this particular day would be different from all the days before.  
The dark blue mech was on the bridge of the Underwater base, seated in front of several screens showing the interior of the base, keeping an optic on his subordinates for Megatron.

The warlord himself had been on the bridge until just a few minutes ago, but he had left to go check on some of his Cons who were taking inventory in some of the lower level stock rooms. Their progress was much too slow for his liking and he hadn't heard from the responsible mechs for quite some time now.

Usually Megatron would have sent Ravage or one of the Cassetticon twins to check up on the lazy Cons, but the catlike mech was on a mission and the other cassettes were still in the medbay after the last battle with the Autobots.

Soundwave watched as his Commander appeared on one of his screens and entered one of the storage rooms.  
The door had barely closed behind the large, silver form, when Starscream appeared on the screen, smirking to himself.

Soundwave tensed as the Seeker pulled out of his subspace a weapon of a design the TIC had never encountered before, and moved to enter the room.

The dark blue mech threw open a com channel, attempting to warn his superior of the danger, but only received static.  
He froze in shock, refusing to believe that he, the Communications specialist, could be blocked so easily and thoroughly.  
He hadn't even noticed when the block was put into place.

He leapt out of his seat, frantically trying to contact his Creations, only to remember that they couldn't help him, being either injured or too far away.

His panic reached new heights when the Seeker on his screen looked up, turned directly to the camera and smirked knowingly, giving a quick and mocking salute.

Then Starscream disappeared into the storage room – and suddenly every single camera in the whole Underwater base died.

Soundwave stared at the static, completely mesmerized, his mind still reeling at being beaten at his own game.

Then he jerked into motion, rushing to through the door and into the lift, praying to Primus that Megatron wouldn't be caught unaware, that Starscream would mess up again, for slagging _anything_!

He ran down the corridors, completely shocking the Decepticons he passed on his way, trying to reach the storage room in time – and failing.

* * *

When the blue mech finally came to a screeching halt in front of the door and bust through, Megatron, Supreme Commander of the Decepticons and icon of hope for so many of them, was gone.

The only trace left of him and his apparent demise were some silver parts scattered throughout the room and heavy scorch marks on the floor.

Soundwave stood transfixed in the doorway, staring at the large, blackened spot in the center of the room and tried to process that his Lord and master was gone and that Starscream had finally succeeded.

Starscream….

He looked up slowly, a corner of his mind noticing the arrival of other Decepticons, who gasped as they saw the state of the room and guessed what had happened.

Starscream sat on a closed crate, his arms crossed in front of his cockpit, emanating pure, unadulterated smugness.

The unknown weapon sat right beside him, the barrel still glowing faintly.

Soundwave stared, his world still shattering around him and his processor trying to catch up.

Starscream smirked, "Well, isn't it time to fall to your knees and render homage to your new Lord, everyone?"

* * *

Almost an hour later, every single Decepticon on base knew about Megatron's gruesome fate and the change of command.

Under Starscream's watchful optics, they had all seen the remains of their former Supreme Commander for themselves, as the now-former Second hadn't moved an inch from his position of glory the whole time.

By now, the Decepticons had all locked themselves away, trying to analyze the new situation and the possibilities it would bring.  
Even Soundwave had collected his Creations from the medbay and had holed up in his quarters.

His only other action had been a quick call to Cybertron to let Shockwave know about their new leader.

Starscream sighed, looked lovingly at the remains of his superior, then jumped off his crate and began to gather the silver scraps from the floor.  
He needed trophies, after all.

When his arms were full and not a single chip of paint was left on the ground, he walked to the crate he had been sitting on and shoved the lid off.

For a few seconds he looked impassively at the faintly moving contents at the bottom of the large box, then he let his trophies fall into it and closed the case.

The red and white Seeker once again turned to survy the scene of his victory, marveling at what he had done, still a little disbelieving himself.  
Then he leaned against the crate and tapped his fingers on the lid, all too aware of the faint shuffling noises coming from within the metal box.

Now, how to solve this unexpected problem…?


	2. A miniscule problem

_Disclaimer: I own nothing – at least nothing Transformers related._

_Thanks to mdnytryder for correcting and betaing._

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2. A miniscule problem

Starscream didn't dwell too long on his little problem.

There were too many other things to do, like comming the Constructicons and ordering them to meet him at Megatron's quarters.  
_Former_ quarters, he thought smugly.

It was time to move in.

He lifted the precious crate with his trophies – end the, ah, _other_ contents – and exited the storage room, humming a jaunty, little song on his way through the corridors to his own _former _quarters.

The Nemesis was oddly silent and he could hear his own steps clanging loudly throughout the halls.  
His shrill humming was a nice counterpoint to the metallic sounds of his pedes and created a haunting harmonic that unnerved the confused and directionless Cons hiding in their quarters even more.

Starscream relished the feeling of finally being a leader.

He had the power – he WAS the power, the iron fist ruling the Decepticons, Cybertron and, someday, even the whole universe.

The humming got louder and Starscream giggled when he finally punched the code into the codepad to open his door.

It was rather difficult to balance the crate and enter the right numbers and symbols at the same time, but he was used to fiddling with several dangerous substances simultaneously from his former life as a scientist, so this attempt at multitasking was manageable.  
At least nothing would explode if he did something wrong.

He dropped the crate onto his berth and began to collect his few possessions from his chambers.  
When he was certain that not a single datapad was left and every last trinket safe inside his crate, he lifted it up once again, glanced one last time at his room, his previous life, then he left, intending to never go back.

* * *

The Constructicons were already waiting for him in front of the Supreme Commander's quarters, keeping a wary distance from the door.

They had known Starscream, the SIC of the Decepticon army, but Starscream, Supreme Commander, was as new to them as to Starscream himself.  
No one knew how he would react to anything, and they did their best to look inconspicuous.

It turned out that this had been the right idea, after all.

Starscream stopped halfway down the hall, before he was even close to the door, and eyed the Gestalt suspiciously.  
"Why are you just standing there, doing nothing?"

His tone was conversational, but his gaze was cold and calculating.

Scrapper and his team tried to appear as innocent as a newly sparked.  
Starscream pursed his lips, regarded them for a moment longer, then he shifted his attention to the door and checked it for any changes since he had last seen it.  
He would put nothing past his fellow Cons, especially, when his own position as leader was still new and weak.

The paranoid live longer.

It seemed to be okay, so he gave the Constructicons the go ahead to open it forcefully. "Well? Get this door open, immediately, if you know what's good for you!"

The Conxtructicons jumped to follow his command, all too aware of their new Supreme Commander watching them with impatient optics.

* * *

It only took some minutes to force the door open.

How careless of Megatron, Starscream thought. He had expected better.

But now, he could finally take his first look at his new domicile.

It was surprisingly… spartan.

Spacious, yes.  
With a nice view outside a large window.  
The berth was roomy, even for someone of Megatron's size, but other than that, it contained nothing spectacular.

Some shelves with datapads about strategies or filled with Cybertronian literature, some music chips, but no war trophies, no heads of enemies or traitors mounted to the walls, no helpless victim chained in a corner, ready to be tortured at Megatron's whim – just ordinary living quarters that had been used as a place to recharge but had been far to less lived in, like every other quarter on the Nemesis.

Like Starscream's own.

'Well, at least I now have my own private washrack,' Starscream mused and entered the small but clean room, inspecting the shower and Megatron's choice of cleansing agents.  
After a moment of consideration, he carefully set his crate down and went back into the main living quarters.

What he could do with all this space….

His gaze fell on the Constructicons, still waiting to be dismissed.

"Well? Isn't the door repaired yet?" he sneered at them, reverting to his old, lovely, charming self.  
Scrapper, Hook and the others couldn't help but sigh in relief.  
Finally, something familiar.

They hurried to get the door back into place and to reprogram the codepad.  
Finished, they bowed, just to play it safe, and slipped quietly out of the room.

* * *

Starscream, already envisioning the adaption of his new living quarters to his specifications, changed the door codeonce more, and was finally alone.

A faint thumping sound floating out of the washrack counteracted this thought.

He scowled, furious at being disturbed just at the moment all his dreams finally became true.  
The Seeker stomped to the crate, lifted the lid and stared down at the tiny red optics that groggily, and more than just a little bit confusedly looked up at him.

"You are insufferable!"

Starscream reached down, gripped the owner of these optics and lifted him up.

"Can't you just be dead like every other sensible mech would be after being blasted with an experimental weapon?"

Starscream's scowl deepened and the tiny, silver Sparkling blinked fearfully up at him.  
The little creature understood instinctively that it was not wanted and that it was in great danger.

It curled into itself and watched Starscream's every move, twitching whenever the Seeker made a sudden gesture or jolted it around, as he brought it to a large table in the middle of the main room.

Starscream dumped the Sparkling on the flat surface and pinned him there with one hand to hold it still while he examined it thoroughly.  
It was indeed and undeniably Megatron, even if in a miniature and slightly altered form.

The little silver Sparkling seemed to be of a lighter, less compact design than the adult mech and reminded Starscream more of Megatron in his gladiator mode, than as at the gunformer he had been reformatted into.

The overall appearance of the little thing was lither than it's adult incarnation. The fusion canon was gone, vanished like all the other weapons the adult mech could have had on or in his body. The bright red optics seemed to be of a lighter color and were large and full of fear.

Starscream smirked at this and tapped the Sparkling on the nose, just to see the panic in those optics rise.

"Don't you like our little role reversal… little fool?"

He poked the Sparkling some more, just for the fun of it, but soon he lost interest and turned back to the main problem:  
What should he do with the silent little thing curled up and staring at him as if the Seeker was the Unmaker himself?

Logic told Starscream that it probably would be best to just kill him and be done with it.  
He could hide the evidence and live his life as the new Decepticon Supreme Commander.

Starscream the warrior was delighted with this solution, and wanted nothing more than to see the hated Energon spill and stain his claws, to never give Megatron an opportunity to best him again.

Starscream the scientist, on the other hand, was pissed.

He still didn't understand why his invention had malfunctioned and he had no clue how it was even possible for an adult mech to change back into his first protoform.  
There were tests to be done, both with the weapon and with the resulting specimen, to solve this riddle and to collect information for further use.

The scientist within the Seeker was nagging him for knowledge even more than his warrios' thirst for revenge.

Starscream abruptly loosed the crushing grip his claws had slowly begun forming around the fragile little cause of so much past humiliation and pain, and he stepped away from the table, sneering.

He gave Megatron one last look, checked that the door was indeed locked and walked over to his new berth.  
He commanded the lights to switch off and lay down, exhausted from the days events and all the new possibilities presented to him.

With a last scowling look to the tiny red pinpricks of light glowing faintly in the darkness, he offlined his own optics and cycled into recharge.

He was barely aware of a dull thump in the background of the room, and then there were only his dreams.


	3. Setting the stage

_Disclaimer: I own nothing – at least nothing Transformers related._

_A rather boring chapter, but necessary. So there are some extras at the end, to serve as explanations for things mentioned in the actual chapter. Have fun._

_Thanks to mdnytryder for correcting and betaing._

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3. Setting the Stage

Starscream onlined feeling incredible.

He stretched languidly to get the kinks out of his wiring, enjoying the luxurious width of his new berth….

WAIT!

NEW BERTH?

The Seeker onlined his optics so fast that he only registered static for several long astroseconds.  
Then he was upright and looking around, drinking in the sight of Mega- of _his_ new quarters. A delighted smile formed on his face as his processor slowly reached working speed and provided him with the memory files of the previous day.

It was a reality.

He had won.

He was Decepticon Supreme Commander.

He was the soon-to-be ruler of Cybertron and the entire universe.

He was – in trouble.

Megs junior wasn't on the table anymore.

Starscream gaped for precious seconds at the empty surface, then jumped from the berth and checked the door.  
It was still locked and hadn't been opened through the whole night cycle. So either the Sparkling had been kidnapped by somebody who was able to deceive the security systems of the Nemesis or the tiny fragger was still in the room hding in fear.

If the adult Megatron would have been able to see this disaster, he would have laughed himself silly....

"When I get my hands on you, you will wish you had never been sparked!" roared Starscream, venting his fury and hoping to scare the Sparkling into the open at the same time.

No silver pipsqueak appeared anywhere, so the Seeker would have to do it the hard way: Seeking.

The tricolored mech first checked the washracks, but only found the abandoned crate, still full of his possessions.  
He left his things alone, and carefully closed the door after him, just to make sure that the Sparkling couldn't crawl into that room to escape.

Then the Seeker began to methodically check the main quarters for any sign of where the tiny terror could have disappeared to.  
A small puddle of Energon near the table caught his interest.

Apparently the Sparkling had either jumped or fallen from the table where Starscream had left him yesterday, and injured himself in the process.

Tiny drops led away from the initial landing point into the dark shadows beneath the Megatron's former desk.

Starscream smirked, knelt down and, yes, there was the shivering Sparkling, frightened optics watching his every move.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," sang Starscream in a low tone and crept closer.

The Sparkling curled up into himself again, sobbing in terror.

Starscream chuckled and after a few more moments of spooking the little thing, he fished it out from under the desk and examined his specimen's damage.

It was probably painful, especially for a sensitive and inexperienced Sparkling, but nothing life-threatening.

The Seeker snorted at the quiet whimpers that grated on his audios and carried Megatron into the washracks, dropped him unceremoniously into the crate and closed the lid. The whimpers turned into cries, then it became silent.

Confident that the Sparkling couldn't escape now, Starscream went back into the main room, getting himself a cube from his now personal Energon dispenser and began to make a mental checklist.

First thing he had to do this morning was rally his troops and to show them once and for all that Megatron's era had ended and The Reign of Starscream had begun.

Then he would have to lay out some general rules.  
He would never again allow anyone to call him Screamer and the punishment for doing so, and several other offenses, would be severe.

Third on his list was searching for human energy plants.  
Their Energon reserves were getting low and he had to take care of his troops.  
But he needed a new strategy for obtaining said Energon as well.

Hum….

Last, but not least, he had to order the Constructicons to build him a new lab, here, in his new quarters. What would he need…?

And perhaps he should change the décor of his new chambers as well?  
Megatron certainly had proved with this sorry excuse for quarters why he hadn't been known for his good taste.

So much to decide….

* * *

"… so the first thing we will do is to search for a new source of Energon.  
Dirge? Take your trine and scout out the power plants at these coordinates. I'll await your report at 0400 tomorrow, any lateness will be punished.  
Any questions?  
No?  
Good. You're dismissed."

Starscream smirked down at his new subordinates while sitting on Megatron's former throne.

His subordinates, in turn, blinked stupidly up at him, still bewildered at the swift change in leadership and a bit overwhelmed by Starscream's long and mind-numbing speech that had now finally found its end.

The Coneheads were the first to shake of the spell, and trotted out of the room, constantly looking around and over their shoulders and wings as if to reassure themselves that their comrades were still there and would wait here for them when they returned from their mission.

The other Cons began to shift nervously and to murmur amongst themselves.

Their postures were hunched, ready for an attack, their optics shifting from faceplate to faceplate, just to settle on Starscream for a moment, then wandering again.

Skywarp and Thundercracker stood so close that their wings occasionally brushed together.  
They had distanced themselves from the other Decepticons, as well as from their wingmate, not wanting to be caught in the middle if the fragile balance in the room shatterd and a fight ensued.

The Constructicons stood huddled in a corner, conversing amongst themselves and keeping an optic out for any hostile movement towards their general direction.  
They weren't exactly content to see Starscream on the throne, but they had been among the first Decepticons and had seen tri-colored Seeker rise to power. It was better not to anger him when he was on a roll, and right now, he was practically vibrating with smugness and excess energy.

Challenging him now would be suicide.

The Combaticons seemed to pick up on it too, if their sour grimaces were anything to go by.  
Apart from that, Scrapper was sure that Starscream had managed to figure out the codes to controll Bruticus by now.  
The little fragger was smart enough to do that.

The third Gestalt team was another story entirely: Aside from Motormaster, they just didn't care enough about longtime power and leadership to be a danger for Starscream's reign.  
Their Gestalt leader could scowl and rage all he wanted, there was no way that he would ever come out on top if it came to a battle over the title of Supreme Commander of the Decepticons.

So that only left the triple changers, Soundwave, and the unknown variable of Shockwave as a possible threat to Starscream.

The telepath stood in the other corner of the room, far away from his usual post to the left of the throne, and sulked.

Scrapper snorted at the sight.

Really, the mech should get a grip. He acted as if Megatron had been one of his precious Creations.

At least Soundwave's spawn were silent for once, even the twins were subdued and wary of their new Lord's temper.

Megatron had thought of Rumble and Frenzy as annoying but useful.  
Starscream only found them to be irritating and had stated more than once that they weren't worth the trouble they created.

It had never failed to amuse Scrapper that the rest of the Decepticon army, including Megatron, had thought the same about Starscream himself.

But those good times were gone now, and a new era was about to begin.

The Construction leader shifted his gaze to the triple changers, standing at the edge of the crowd and whispering.  
He was sure that they were already plotting something.

And by Starscream's calculating gaze thrown in their direction, he had caught it, too.

Their new leader may have officially dismissed them, but until now he hadn't done anything to get them to leave the throne room.  
Instead the tricolored mech used the chance to analyze where he stood in the shifty loyalty of his ranks.

Scrapper frowned thoughtfully.

Perhaps Starscream would turn out to be a better, and more clever leader than they had all thought….

* * *

Hours later, Starscream happily strode back to his new quarters.

After all, business had been dealt with, now it was time for pleasure.

He opened the door – and on his face appeared a smile of pure delight.

The Constructions may forever be only the second best medics after Ratchet – but Grapple and Hoist had no comparison to their abilities as architects and builders.

Inside his quarters waited the dream of every scientist, a lab that included everything he could have ever wished for.

The tips of his claws tingled with the urge to touch and to try all his new toys and his wings quivered in anticipation.

So much to do, so many theories to prove, so many hypothesizes to dissect to the tiniest variable available….

A faint shuffling sound from the direction of the washracks brought him out of his little fit of maniacal glee and anticipation and he grinned slowly.

So much to do, indeed….

He sauntered over to the washracks, opened the crate and lifted Megatron out.

Starscream had fitted both the door to the washracks and the lid of the crate with a special magnetic lock to keep the Constructicons from discovering his little secret.  
But then again, the Gestalt was usually too absorbed in their projects that they most certainly hadn't noticed the whimpers and the sniffling of the Sparkling, and certainly hadn't bothered looking around.

The tiny Sparkling still looked exactly the same since Starscream had last seen him this morning.

This was reassuring.

The Seeker had had the weird fantasy of an adult Megatron waiting for him when he returned to his quarters more than once this day.

Suddenly Starscream had to stifle a giggle at the thought.

Megatron would have changed back while still tightly locked into the crate.  
The ridiculous image of the crate with the warlords wildly flailing, silver limbs sticking out of its sides appeared in the tri-colored mech's processor.

His giggle grew to an all-out laugh when he heard the Megatron in his processor "roar", voice still screechy and as thin as the voice of a Sparkling, squeaking and whining about what he would to do to his SIC if he ever got out of his prison.

Abruptly a glowing fusion cannon appeared on the vision's right arm, pointed right at Starscream's Spark.

The Seeker sobered instantly.

He banned the image into the farthest corner of his processor and became aware of the real Megatron warily watching him, looking at him as if he didn't quite know what to think of him. Starscream knew that look and it made him angry.

"Don't look at me like that!" he snarled and shook the daring little thing once for good measure.

After that rough treatment the Sparkling looked like he was about to purge his tanks and the taller mech hurried to place him on the new and shiny examination table before he was covered in half-processed Energon.

* * *

Starscream sat extended over the flat surface of the examination table, head resting on his folded arms, and looked at the silver Sparkling curled up in front of him.

Megatron stared right back, exhausted, hungry and aching all over, but too scared to let the taller mech out of his sight for even one second.

He had been prodded, scratched, poked and all but dissected by Starscream at least _thrice,_ and still the scientist had no clue why his weapon had turned the Decepticon Supreme Commander into a runt instead of toasting him for good.

As his probes were being analyzed, categorized and neatly put in order by his new supercomputer, Starscream had nothing left to do but wait for the results, and then he could resume his research with the new data.

Sure, he could examine Megatron for a fourth time – but he was tired, too, and he wouldn't learn anything new from it.

Starscream scrunched up his faceplates and sighed. He had always hated this stage of research, and more than once Skyfire had waited all alone for the results of their tests while Starscream had been home, snoring away on a unused table in a corner, or in bar in the lower sections of Iacon, drowning his frustration with science, the council and life in general in Highgrade.

Patience really had never been his strong point.

He managed to gather the willpower to extract one arm out of his makeshift pillow and reach into his subspace, and pull out a cube of Energon.  
He slowly sipped at the glowing substance, and after a while, he noticed how Megatron's little optics seemed to follow his every move.

Correction: They followed the Energon.

He smirked and dangled the cube right in front of the little one's nose, moving it to and fro, the tiny optics not leaving the purple glow for an astrosecond.

Abruptly, Starscream thrust the Energon into Megatron's face and the Sparkling jerked backwards with a cry and went cross-eyed in an attempt to keep the liquid in focus.

Starscream almost fell from his perch with his laughter.

When he calmed down, the little one looked at Starscream with a strange mix of sourness, fright and desperation playing over his faceplates.  
The silver Sparkling whined faintly and hesitantly reached out to him, asking for nourishment.

Starscream snorted and poked the little mech's nose.

"It's no use to whimper and cry, _mighty_ Megatron. You'll be dead in a few days. So it would be a waste of Energon to feed you. Go suck your thumb, you're not getting anything from me."

The Sparkling sniffled and shied away, as if understanding the words. The large, ruby optics filled with tears and he reached for the cube, pleading for the rest of Energon in it.

Starscream chuckled and made a show of emptying it, and crushing the cube afterwards.

Revenge had never before been so sweet.

Megatron whined and curled up again, rocking to and fro while thick tears raun down his cheeks.

Starscream didn't care.  
Something else had caught his interest.

He reached for the Sparkling, one claw holding it still while the other poked and prodded, finally pulling the helm from the silver head.

Dark silver plates fanned out and the Sparkling gave a sudden squeak, and tried to huddle into an even tighter ball, optics darting around in fear, Starscream all but forgotten.  
It tried to cover its head and the Seeker closed his claw tighter so that he had a chance to examine the panels and to figure out their purpose.

After a moment, he once again found himself laughing.

Megatron, mighty, fearless, powerful, panic-inspiring Megatron, Slagmaker and spawn of the Unmaker, nightmare of every Autobot and not a few Decepticons also, shared a weakness he had always despised and mocked of his Seekers.

But where Starscream and his kind were afraid of closed spaces, Megatron was afraid of free and open areas.

It was logical, Starscream mused.

While the gladiator class mechs had been the warlords and generals in the wars before the Golden Age, they had soon become – useless and obsolete in the optics of the newfound council. Their tight clan structures had been broken and destroyed, their morals shattered by the order of the new rulers of Cybertron, and the few survivors had been shipped to the colonies or turned into lowly workers.

Like miners, for example.

Megatron's origins must lay in the dark mines also. Starscream was sure of it.  
He must have been created and raised there, never getting the chance to leave the dark and cozy tunnels of his youth.

These panels on his head were typical for miners, continually analyzing the space and, far more important, the rock above their heads, checking it for damage, weaknesses and traces of ores, Energon or instabilities.

They could save lives – but if one did possess them and wasn't able, or allowed, to become accustomed to the openness of normal rooms or of the sky as a Sparkling, they would never be able to leave the mines without some sort of helmet to cover the panels. Otherwise they would keep trying to analyze the nothingness around them, and would constantly blare alarms on a mech's internal systems, orsimply cause the same type of panic that gripped Seekers when forced to endure small rooms where no, or _incorrect,_ air movement could caress the sensors on their wings.

Megatron must have never been out of the mines long enough to learn to deal with his panels.  
Well, it would be fun to see what he would get out of his chance, now.

Starscream subspaced the little helm, earning himself another cry at the action, and set the Sparkling down on the ground.  
The little silver mechling crawled as fast as he could under the desk again, searching darkness and enclosed spaces, frightened optics peering out from its cover at all the _room _out there.

Starscream watched its antics for a while, listening to the frightened chirps and clicks, then he rested his head on his arms again and drifted off into recharge.

_**

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AN:

**"The Gladiator Class", from an essay about the differences between the Cybertronian classes written by Skyfire for the human government: **

_Gladiator class mechs and femmes were created to lead. They are clever, manipulative and violent if they need to be, but they are also loyal and dedicated to their ideals.  
In ancient times they were the warlords of our kind, possessing a natural sense for tactics and strategies and the ambition to win and the necessary mindset to care for even the lowliest soldier._

_After the wars ended, they reverted back to their other original functions: Arena fighters._

_These arena fights were nothing like the pit fights of the end of the Golden Age.  
They__ were not brutal bloodsports, but an honorable game, played only by gladiators and those who wanted to be included in their ranks._

_The combatants followed a strict moral code that forbade killing unless absolutely necessary or agreed upon before the fight, and even then, a winner could chose to let his opponent live to fight another day, or to even "adopt" them into their clan._

_No outside force had any influence on such a match or one of the fighters._

_The gladiators organized themselves in clans, consisting of a matriarch or patriarch - not necessarily the strongest or oldest warrior- their family (cocreations, creators and creations), close friends, trusted helpers like medics and traders and, naturally, their students and apprentices._

_Sparklings and Younglings need the longest time of any Cybertronian class to fully develop, their slow growth necessary because of their mass and strength as an adult and the importance to learn hundreds of fighting techniques, tactics and the moral code of their ancestors.  
Another side effect was the close bond to their family, helping the clans to have an order among their kind._

_Students either introduced themselves to the clanleaders and warriors, trying to impress the elders to become part of the clan, or were spontaneously chosen after a fight between two fighters. There are rumors and stories in existence, of some unwitting Cybertronian challenging, or even just insulting, a gladiator and suddenly finding themselves part of a clan, because said warrior liked their attitude and decided to "keep them"._

_The loyalty inside a clan was strong and often survived even when one Creation of the clanleader left the clan to found his own.  
Usually, a strong ally formed between both groups and all matches were hold on friendly terms._

_Apart from these special cases, the relationship between clans could vary between close friendships and vendettas that were carried out, until only one clan remained._

_The council decided near the middle of the Golden Age, that the gladiator class was no longer needed, and that their fighting way to life was too violent to exist any longer in their vision of a peaceful and glorious Cybertron._

_They overwhelmed the clans in a meticulously planned, sudden attack, shattering their structures completely and scattering the survivors among the hardest working Cybertronians, making them into miners, dock workers, heavy lifters and other arduous laborers._

_Thus the gladiator class and Cybertron as a whole forgot their legacy, and just remembered the death matches, which the revived as the bloody pit fights._

_Clans were replaced by teams lead by tyrannical leaders, the honor code forgotten and replaced by greed and ambition._

_The last traces of the once-great and admired gladiators vanished from existence, until a miner, later known as Megatron, appeared out of the darkness of Kaon, bringing a faint, twisted reflection of former glory with him._

_[…]_

"**Seekers and their claustrophobia", from an essay about the differences between the Cybertronian classes written by Skyfire for the human government:**

_To call the Seeker-typical fright for enclosed spaces "claustrophobia" is like comparing apples and oranges.  
Nonetheless, lacking a better human definition, I will continue using that expression._

_A Seeker's wings are some of the most sensitive areas known on a Cybertronian frame.  
They consist of very thin plating protecting several sensor nets that are continually analyzing wind currents, air pressures, wind speed, various chemicals, temperatures, altitude, speed of the flight and several other categories of data that humans have not yet found a way to measure, or have even discovered._

_In a closed space, the "claustrophobia" can be triggered two ways._

_Possibility one is caused by the data gathered by the wings not changing at all, the air in the room being too still to cause much disturbance on the sensors, thus giving the Seeker the feeling of "suffocating", for a lack of a better word. Their sensors keep trying to register a change that their processor insists has to be there, overtaxing the circuits and causing pain, starting in the wings and cranial unit of the Seeker, then spreading to all other limbs._

_The Seeker feels trapped, about to be crushed by the unmoving air in the room and begins to panic, losing his sense of reality and egging himself on until his processor overheats and he succumbs to overwhelming terror that can cause temporary or permanent insanity._

_Often Seekers cause injuries to their own wings in this state, desperate to feel anything other than nothing at all.  
Some even mutilate themselves completely, trying to get rid of the pain and their screaming, overreacting sensors._

_The other cause for a Seeker's claustrophobia can be low air movements in the closed room, mostly circular air currents, brushing the sensors continually at the same places.  
The sensor nets will begin to focus on those places until the remaining nodes are completely shut off and the receiving sensors become so sensitive, that each air movement feels like a strong wind instead of a light breeze._

_The data from those sensors is misinterpreted by the processor of the Seekers, causing the illusion of being caught in an invisible storm._

Most Seekers can resist this form of "claustrophobia" for some time, using their optics to help convince their processor that the data they receive is incorrect.

_Over time, the ability to ignore this input lessens, while the receptiveness of the sensors increases, and very soon the Seeker is unable to fight the corrupted data, and he begins to believe that he is caught in a tornado, his processor beginning to overwrite his visual and audial feed with a fitting, fictional situation._

_They will feel trapped in a situation they can't handle on their own anymore, each attempt of breaking of of the hallucination on their own becomes impossible._

They will panic and try to save themselves from certain death by exhibting an urge to move, getting aggressive and attacking anyone who comes close.  
Their processor convinces them that the helpers are squalls or items whirling around in the tornado threatening to crash into them, which could cause them to loose the ability to fly, what would result in the certain death of the Seeker if the hallucination would be reality.

_If the seeker is panicking, it's best to get him out of the room as quickly as possible, changing the environments and forcing his sensors to reset and to reevaluate their data. _

_If there is no way to remove them from the enclosed space, it helps to touch their wings from time to time, disturbing the sensors and supplying them with changing data.  
It is also suggested that it's helpfull to move around the room, making wide, exaggerated movements that displace a lot of air._

_But the best way to deal with the Seeker's inherited fright of closed spaces is to have enough understanding and compassion to not to even bring them into such situations.  
_


	4. Small print

_Disclaimer: I own nothing – at least nothing Transformers related._

_**AN: **__Yeah, surprisingly enough I'm still alive. And now back to Starscream getting exactly what he wants - or not.  
Guess sometimes it would be better to read the whole contract before agreeing to it.  
_

_Thanks to mdnytryder for correcting and betaing._

* * *

**4. Small Print**

Some days it just didn't pay to get out of bed in the morning.

Or off the berth, in Starscream's case.

And the day had all started that promising.

After a wonderfully replenishing recharge on a large, comfortable berth, a tasty, reenergizing breakfast from his very own, personal Energon dispenser, a kick at the former bane of his existence (still whimpering under the desk) and an inspiring speech in front of his awe-filled, worshipping troops, he and his army had made their way to the formerly scouted out power plant, intent on securing the first of many victories over the Autobots under his expert leadership.

It… hadn't quite played out that way.

* * *

"Scre… I mean, Lord Starscream! The Autobots are closing in fast from east."

Skywarp grinned sheepishly at the scathing glare he received for his almost-slip up.

Starscream decided that just this once his trine mate's stupidity could be excused and turned to his troops, spreading his arms wide, "Dear subordinates! Once again the foolish Autobots have come to challenge our superiority and lose. While Megatron managed, time after time, to cost us our hard-earned victory with his outdated schemes and obsolete plans, I, Starscream, rightful ruler of the Decepticons, will lead you all to the glory you deserve! Follow my ingenious plan and we will win!"

He rose a few feet in the air and pointed dramatically in the direction of the approaching Autobots. "Now, show them the power of the new and improved Decepticon army! Decepticons attack!"

Nothing happened.

The Cons beneath him glanced around uncertainly, every mech waiting for one of the others to make the first step away from the freshly stolen Energon cubes and towards the future battlefield. It was one thing to listen to Starscream order them around while collecting cubes, it had happened before. But, actually hearing him ordering them into battle, not Megatron's almighty, unmistakable roar was… just plain wrong somehow.

It was as if some fundamental part of the universe had cracked and every mech was sensing it deep within their Sparks.

Moments later they yelped as pinkish laser beams rained down on them, only stinging slightly (it wouldn't do to damage his troops too badly before they had even faced the Autobots) but finally spurring them into action.

Starscream huffed as he stared at his moving troops.

They were still advancing towards their enemies far slower than he would have liked, but at least they were doing something other than staring into space like a flock of lost Sparklings waiting for their Creator to come and get them.

Really, they were acting as if Megatron's death held more importance other than him finally making room for a younger, better leader with actual functioning plans.

Soon they would stand corrected and bow to his glory, Autobot carcasses at his feet and Prime's Spark in his claws, ready to be crushed….

While Starscream allowed himself a minute to dwell in his delusions of grandeur, Rumble silently pinged his twin over a commlink, "Hey Bro. I didn't quite pay attention back there…. What's actually the plan?"

Frenzy hesitated, then shrugged, "Basically rush in, get pounded, then retreat."

"Same as ever then?"

"Yeah, same as ever."

"We're doomed…."

* * *

It was a good battlefield.

Fflat, plain, ground not too soft or too dusty, no trees to obscure the view but lots of rocks to hide behind.  
Usually both armies would use these optimal conditions to just rush at each other, any tactic rapidly flying out of the window in favor of brute strength, raw power and the occasional cluster bomb dropped from a passing Seeker.

But this time, while the Autobots were properly motivated with righteous fury and a thirst for justice (and Energon), impatiently waiting for the traditional pre-battle banter between the leaders to end, the Decepticon troops sort of… trickled on the battlefield one by one, shifting their pedes, lagging behind their comrades and occasionally glancing behind them or up at the sky in a partly nervous, partly embarrassed manner.

Finally both armies stood facing each other, the Autobots scowling and yelling threats, the Decepticons… just standing there.

And they waited.

After a few minutes the noise slowly died down, some Autobots finally noticing the sorry state of their opponents and the wary gazes they cast at the empty sky.

And they waited some more.

The battle-lust was cooling down by now and more and more of Prime's warriors looked around in confusion, their gazes finally settling on their officers, begging for an explanation for the weird behavior of the Cons.

But unfortunately, even the higher ups had no clue to what was actually happening and had decided to wait just a little longer, Prowl running every scenario he could think of through his battle computer to explain the strange situation and not even coming close to the truth. (It was just too unlikely.)

And they continued to wait, the atmosphere rapidly shifting from bloodthirsty, to confused to downright awkward.

Finally Skywarp broke the uncomfortable silence with a sheepish grin, "You have to give him a moment. He's worked long and hard for this."

Seconds later a clang of metal and Skywarp's startled yowl of pain echoed over the battlefield as Thundercracker and Thrust both slapped the purple Seeker's wings in reproach.

Thundercracker sent the Conehead a glare for abusing _his _wing-mate, then he opened a comm-channel to his absent Supreme Commander, "Starscream?"

Not too far away a tri-colored Seeker jumped as he was suddenly ripped out of his pleasant daydreams of crushed Autobots, crowns and a suspiciously familiar silver servant offering him Energon treats. "Whu?" he answered, eloquent as ever.

"Just a question, but shouldn't a warlord be actually part of the war and not hide in the back?" Thundercracker queried.

"I wasn't hiding!" the familiar screech was heard by every mech on the battlefield, more than one wincing and adjusting their audio settings.

Moments later the roar of jet engines announced Starscream's arrival on the battlefield.

Grinning proudly, his wings spread wide and catching the light, he floated in front of his troops, looking down at the pathetic ground-pounders that dared to challenge the great Starscream, Prince, no, King of the Skies, Supreme Commander of the Decepticons, Ruler of all Cybertron and the rest of the universe….

Starscream shook himself out of his trance before his internal tirade could continue. He had to focus now and dwelling on his glory wouldn't help, as well deserved as it was. But… he just couldn't help it.

Somehow Megatron's "death" and his new rank were just finally settling in, here, on the battlefield, where he was finally calling the shots instead of that rusty, ancient, cross-wired bucket head with his….

Starscream twitched and concentrated once again on the situation at hand.  
Still, he couldn't help the fact that he was now grinning like a loon.

"Ah, Autobots! So nice of you to finally join us on this wonderful day…."

"We've already been here a while."

"Shhh, silence. I want to hear this. Ten credits he's a smoking pile of scrap before he can even say 'If I were the leader of the Decepticons.'"

"Twenty bucks he'll not even get that far."

Starscream's grin threatened to freeze at hearing the snickering of those pit-spawned twins and the Bots closest to them, but then he fixed it firmly in place again.  
He would show them.

He dismissed the yellow and red menaces with a flick of his wings and turned to address a patiently waiting Optimus, "I hereby inform you that we've had a little change in management since we've last seen each other. Megatron is dead. I, Starscream, Ruler of the Skies, am now the new Decepticon Supreme Commander."

He straightened to his full height and waited for the Autobots' reaction to this glorious news.

They certainly would be frightened, panicking even, begging for mercy at his thrusters and kissing his feet in an attempt to stay alive, they… didn't do anything?

Starscream risked a look at his strangely quiet enemies who failed spectacularly at showing the proper panic his announcement should have produced in their Sparks.  
Instead they were just standing there, looking bored and glancing around as if expecting something.

Starscream frowned.

He leaned forward and spoke slowly, as if to a very young Sparkling: "I said, I am the Supreme Commander of the Decepticons now."

Again, no real reaction. At least none he had hoped for.

Jazz scratched his helmet and turned to Prowl, "Shouldn't Megatron have turned up by now to shoot him out of the sky?"

The other black and white mech inclined his head and lifted an optic ridge, "Indeed, he's late by two minutes and thirty-six seconds by now."

Optimus Prime chuckled - **chuckled!** – at this and, halfway facing his officers and therefore displaying his unguarded back to Starscream – oh the insult! – said, "As often as this particular scenario has happened, I guess it can be forgiven if he's late once in a while. I mean, if I were in his stead, I probably would have tired of this whole drama by now."

"More comedy than drama if you ask me, Prime," Jazz smirked up at the now pouting Seeker. "Hey Smokescreen, I give the Screaming One two more minutes, then he's scrap metal."

"Noted Jazz!"

Starscream didn't know if he should sulk, scream, scowl or go hide in a corner and never come out again.  
He settled on glowering and pouting accusingly at his opponents' leader.

HOW DARE THEY?

And how could Prime allow them to show such disrespect to their enemies' top officer?

Even before becoming Supreme Commander, hadn't he shown them often enough just how ruthless, deadly and downright terrifying he was?

They should have at least the good manners to tremble a bit at the mere possibility that he was the new leader.

This was all Megatron's fault!

Minutes passed, both armies getting restless and shifting uncomfortably as no Megatron appeared to blast the red Seeker to bits and to save the rightness of the universe.

Finally the first Autobots began to consider the possibility that Starscream had actually said the truth – or caught Megatron in a quite ingenious trap this time. A trap, that even the seasoned gladiator had some problems with getting out of.

Jazz fidgeted and stepped closer to Prowl, murmuring quietly as if not to let the other Bots knew about his worry, "There's no chance he's _really _managed to off the old Buckethead – is there?"

Given the complete silence on the battlefield other than the occasional shifting of pedes, his desperate plea at the end of his sentence was heard by all.

A moment nothing happened, then Soundwave hesitatingly took a tiny step forward, head hanging in obvious misery. "Correction. Megatron status: deactivated. Starscream: New Leader of the Decepticons."

It took a few seconds for everyone to digest the news – then Prowl promptly fell over, optics dark and face slack.

Starscream glared at him. Now that was downright mean.

The other Autobots were collectively sent reeling.  
Gaping in shock and disbelief they looked at their Con counterparts, only to notice that, yes, their expressions ranged from downright misery to a "So we did manage to get our leader killed. Laugh it up already. It's not that big a deal, it's not like it couldn't have happened to anyone else.** Really.**" – look clearly supporting Soundwave's story.

Prime stared at the sulking Seeker in front of him, not believing that his nemesis had truly been offlined by, by _this_! A pouting, whiney brat!

"Seriously?" he squeaked, sounding rather undignified.

The pout only grew and Starscream abruptly turned around, "I refuse to waste my time with you any further. Decepticons! Get the Energon. The Autobots clearly aren't in a fit state to fight us for it. Eh… The… uhm… wonderful news of my _promotion_ have clearly… eh… overwhelmed their feeble processors. They are obviously… uh… panicking. Yes, that's it."

He got a lot of disbelieving looks at these words, but his subordinates turned around and prepared to shuffle back to the abandoned Energon cubes.

"Wait!" Prime's voice stopped them all in their tracks.

Starscream sniffed and turned halfway around, the injury to his pride still stinging badly. "Yes?"

Prime still seemed more than a little bit shocked.  
But, he was clearly trying to overcome it and to focus on his actual mission: Keeping the Decepticons from stealing the Energon and probably damage even more of the power plant in the progress.

"We can't let you go!"

Starscream took a short glance and Prime's troops and snorted, "It doesn't look to me as if you'll have much of a choice, Autobot. Your army is in shambles."

"Who wouldn't be if the universe suddenly got thrown out of whack. It's the apocalypse, I'm telling ya," groused Jazz from where he was crouching next to a still offline Prowl, trying to wake him up.

"Shut up!" screeched Starscream, finally feed up with the disbelief and disrespect he was getting. "I am the Supreme Commander of the Decepticon army, you ingrate, and I demand to be treated accordingly."

Prime suddenly got a strange glint in his optics, his calm miraculously returning. "Really…", he purred in a tone of voice that sounded so similar to the late Megatron for a moment, that more than one mech on the battlefield shivered.

Starscream was instantly wary and yet, even he, with his lightning-fast reflexes, couldn't do anything else but scream when he suddenly found himself making rough acquaintance with the ground.

For a moment he was left reeling, then his vision cleared and he moaned in pain at the gravel digging in his sensitive wings. He sat up, wincing, and suddenly found himself face to legs with Optimus Prime, the taller mech staring down at him with a positive wicked gleam in his optics.

"What… what are you doing?" Asked Starscream meekly, his wings trembling in fear.

"But Starscream," purred the Prime again, causing quite a lot of painful déjà vues for Starscream. "I'm just doing what you wanted me to do. You wanted to be treated accordingly to your new position after all, and the duel between the faction-leaders has basically become tradition at this point…."

For one blessed moment the Seeker just stared at his opponent uncomprehendingly, than he finally understood and his optics grew wide and panicky.

Fighting against Prime?

This behemoth of brute strength and violence who only knew Megatron as his equal?

"Seriously?" he squeaked in an even higher pitch than usual. He had the distinct expression that Prime smirked behind this thrice-damned mask of his.

Starscream remained frozen for one more moment, then he turned around and desperately scrambled to get into the air and far away.  
But he hadn't even gotten lift when a big – OH PRIMUS! He was DOOMED! – hand closed around his left turbine and crushed it as easily as Megatron had ever done.

He would later remember screaming in pain and fright, seeing a tall, dark shadow descending, then the rest of his memories would degrade into a wild flurry of movement, pain, darkness and sky, underlined by the jeering and laughing of not only Prime's, but his army as well….

He should have stayed in his berth this morning.

* * *

In the end somebody - Starscream would never find out who but he hoped it had been his wing-mates or at least Soundwave and not, say, Breakdown or Dirge or somebody equally embarrassing – had the Spark to intervene on his Supreme Commander's behalf and to end the fight.

Either that or Prime just got tired of beating a faintly moaning pile of scrap metal into even smaller, more dented bits.

Anyway, when the Seeker finally regained consciousness, he was in the medbay of the Nemesis in the "tender" mercies of the Constructicons, his frame halfway reconstructed.  
For one long horrifying but also strangely relieving moment he thought that everything that had happened had just been a bad dream. Megatron was still ruler of the Cons and not barely tall enough to reach the top of an Energon cube and he, Starscream, had just run afoul of him again.

Everything was as it should be.

That strange moment didn't last any longer than Soundwave's monotonous voice somehow gleefully informing him of the utter defeat of his army, the loss of seven-eights of the Energon cubes they had extracted from the power plant and the number of injured from today's raid being one mech, Starscream himself, and a few strained cables and upset tanks from laughing too hard for too long.

Also, Soundwave droned on and on and Starscream - blurry as his sight still was after having both optics cracked, the circuitry behind them in disorder and partly pierced by glass shards - could clearly see the smug glint in his Second's visor, Optimus Prime had sent a message stating that he would treat Starscream "accordingly to his status" again whenever the Seeker wanted and that he expected the terms of a complete surrender of the Decepticon army in at least two weeks time from now.

Starscream shrieked in rage – or would have done so, if his vocalizer hadn't just made a faint _vzzzz-_sound, sparked a bit and then died completely.

The Constructicons didn't even bother to hide their chuckles and Soundwave's whole presence, without the mech actually doing anything, mind you, changed from gleeful to pointing at Starscream's misery and laughing his aft off.

And then, just when Starscream was certain that the situation couldn't get any worse, the bigger blue mech added insult to injury, unsubspaced a… a _mountain _of datapads and let them fall directly on the Seeker's still heavily injured midsection, crushing the last remnants of the cockpit in the progress.

Starscream's optics, or what remained of them, went wide, his vision changing to static for a few seconds and his mouth opened in a silent scream, while his body desperately tried to curl into itself to protect the section that hurt. The only problem was that the motion awaked every other one of the Seeker's impressive array of injuries, causing them to ache, burn and tear at Starscream's sanity and consciousness.

The Constructicons and Soundwave enjoyed the sight of their "leader" having seizures on the repair berth for over a minute, then Hook finally sighed and numbed Starscream's sensors completely, leaving him stranded in some sort of limbo in his processor, in which only one word sounded over and over again, spoken in Soundwave's evil monotonous form of utter smugness: "Paperwork."

* * *

It was in the middle of the graveyard shift when Starscream finally stumbled back into Mega- _his_ quarters, aching all over, paint marred by ugly weld lines and dents and still loaded down by even more paperwork that had mysteriously multiplied after the first Cons heard about this newest torture inflicted on their glorious Supreme Commander.

Suddenly every Con on Earth had happily taken the time to compile a report of the day's events in triplicate and translated to Standard Cybertron, High Cybertron, Ancient Military High Cybertron, the three mayor Terran languages and – was that actually Quint? – when usually most of their reports didn't consist of more than "We lost. Next time we'll win. Hail Megatron."

Starscream didn't even know where a horde of mechs that had enough problems forming sentences using Cybertronian slang had suddenly learned High Cybertron, let alone the Ancient forms of it (the long-since obsolete glyphs included). But, he had the distinct feeling that a certain telepath may have helped. (And he was sure that that damn mech was cackling silently but manically behind that thrice-damned faceplate of his, slaggit!)

Perhaps they had even contacted Shockwave to let him in on the fun…?

(No! Please, just… no!)

Anyway, Starscream was more than ready to curl up in a corner and cry himself into recharge if he hadn't been sure that everything would just get miraculously worse somehow if he didn't look these reports over now and was able to give them back to Soundwave tomorrow the moment he first spotted the mech. Who knew what other languages the telepath could teach his troops overnight, when a few hours produced six or seven?

The Seeker let the datapads fall unto his desk, then he slipped into his chair and rested his head on the cool, smooth surface in front of him for a moment.  
He was ached all over and dead tired. Megatron's spacious berth had never looked more inviting than right now.

He wondered if the giant mech ever had to deal with this.

Probably not, it was more likely that he had always foisted all his paperwork on Starscream and occasionally Soundwave while he himself had happily lounged on his luxurious berth sipping Highgrade and laughing at his favorite target's misfortune.

Yeah, that was how it must have been.

Right?

But then again, Starscream couldn't remember ever seeing a similar amount of paperwork in the past, even when times had been particularly bad or good for the Decepticons or he had royally pissed Megatron of…

Suddenly he remembered just why he was in this situation in the first place and groaned in despair.  
He didn't have to just finish looking through all the reports, he also had to devise a new plan to gather Energon as well.

Megatron's "At'em and smash'em" clearly didn't work, especially if the giant silver gladiator wasn't actually present to draw the enemy's fire and, more importantly, Prime's ire on him.

So Starscream actually had to think of something new, preferably without involving his person getting beat into the ground.

He groaned again and reached for an unopened Energon cube balancing precariously on the edge of the desk after it had become almost a victim of the falling paperwork of doom.

Now that was an idea, perhaps he should send Prime all these datapads and see how he would deal with this.

Partly entertaining the idea of a red and blue mini-Prime drowning in a sea of evil datapads of doom, soon joined by a silver Mini-Megs and a shrieking Mini-Soundwave about to get devoured by Sharkticons in the shape of long-obsolete glyphs, the Seeker peeled the lid of the Energon cube and relished the invigorating taste of new energy about to hit his systems.

And faint squeak finally reminded him of the other occupant of the room.

The tiny silver Sparkling still refused to leave his sanctum beneath the desk and its enclosed space, but driven by an empty tank and the hunger of at least two days it was now peeking warily out of his dark refuge and up at Starscream.

Or more exactly, the cube he held in his hands.

It squeaked again, hopeful, yearning and scared at the same time, the small optics never leaving the precious Energon.

For a moment Starscream just stared back, his pain and drug and exhaustion-addled processor trying to make sense of the silver thing hiding beneath his desk.  
Then something clicked into place and his blank face turned into an ugly, hate filled grimace.

He jumped from his chair, ignoring the pain the motion caused, and made a grab for the terrified Sparkling who screeched and tried to flee in vain.

"This… is all _**your**_ fault!"


	5. Into the Blue

_Disclaimer: I own nothing – at least nothing Transformers related._

_**AN: **__Just a short filler chapter this time around. Sorry. But after such a long time I have to get back into the flow of the story and Starscream needs some rest to lick his wounds after his great debut as the Decepticon Supreme Commander as well. _

_At the end of the chapter you will find some more pseudo-scientific explanations. I hope you enjoy them – I did writing them ^^ – and that they make up a bit for the lacking length of the actual chapter. Actually I think they are longer than the chapter itself. Uhm…_

_Unfortunately I didn't manage to get in touch with my usual beta mdnytryder but __Starfire201__ graciously took over until further notice. Thank you. ^^_

* * *

**5. Into the blue**

Starscream had to give Megatron one thing.

He was tenacious and a survivor.

Even now, as an itty bitty sparkling cowering under his desk and nursing the wounds he had acquired when the Seeker had followed the old and honored tradition of blaming recent failures on the first mech in the Decepticon Supreme Commander's sight.

Megatron Junior had taken quite a beating, Starscream's Spark reveling in the squeaks and squeals and shrieks of pain the tiny vocalize had emitted while his processor had conjured memory after memory of similar encounters with the roles reversed, with Starscream cowering on the floor, desperately begging for mercy and crying in agony, trying to protect himself from more blows and feeling utterly helpless under the cruel stare of the giant mech towering over him, judging him and finding him wanting and taking great pleasure in letting him _know_ just how pathetic and useless he found him to be.

It had been the Pit for the little silver creature that had once been the bane of the red Seeker's existence but pure heaven for said Seeker, his ego swelling back to its former size (roughly equal to Jupiter) and _vorns_ of nightmares full of torture and dreams for revenge finally coming to rest.

So it was no real surprise that even with the threat of more of Soundwave's "Evil Paperwork of Doom"™ looming above Starscream's head and the army's Energon storages dangerously low, the new leader of the Decepticon woke up on his wonderful, spacious, new berth with a smile on his face and the feeling that he could take on the world and win. (Not Prime though, but he would find a way to rectify that problem as well… Somehow.)

He stretched languorously, reveling in the opportunity to flex his wings and warm up his thrusters without having to fear to bump into walls or scorch something that was too close to the berth. Then he hopped on his peds, sauntered over to his _own_ personal Energon dispenser, aware of tiny red optics following him warily all the way and drew himself a cube. The liquid energy inside the cube was paler than normal and kind of dull, a clear sign that the Energon reserves were getting low and only the low grades and stale leftovers remained.

It sobered Starscream slightly but still he kept a huge smile on his face and turned so that buckethead junior had a good view of him drinking every last drop of the precious liquid. A broken whine reached his audios and the Sparkling shuffled around a bit, sniffing and clicking in pain and hunger, but in the end, the little mech knew better than to leave his hiding place, especially after what had happened last evening.

Starscream smirked, crushed the cube and turned towards the door, when a tiny beep from his computer froze him in his tracks.  
Apparently his super-computer had finally managed to get through all the data of his previous experiments.

The Seeker was far from impressed at the time it had needed to come up with some results. Super-computer, hah!  
He could have probably come up with some answers himself if he had known that it would take so long to sort through such a measly amount of data.

Starscream grumbled softly about incompetent super-computers and even more incompetent Constructicons, torn between rushing to his blinking toy to discover the reason for the tiny nuisance running underfoot and the desperate need to find a way to get Energon before they all fell into stasis. (And to get the paperwork out of his quarters before it came alive and swallowed him whole, he wouldn't put anything past Soundwave at the moment.)

* * *

In the end, some newfound sense of responsibility (and his fear of the paperwork) won.

Starscream somehow managed to cram all his datapads in his arms, almost stepped on Mini-Megs hand for good measure and made it out of the rooms with not loosing more than three pads. Once he had reached the command center, he shoved his load of finished paperwork of the arms of the first mech he could find, smirking smugly at the rather disappointed looking Decepticons that watched him covertly from their stations.

For a moment the Seeker habitually considered adding insult to the injury, to make a comment that would rub in that he had beaten them at their own game and would continue to do so in the future – then he ruthlessly squashed the impulse. Almost drowning in datapads once was enough. No need to tempt his army to throw even more at him, just to see if he could back up whatever verbal claims he had made before.

His silence on the matter raised some optic ridges, but Starscream quickly distracted the more devious minds in the room from figuring out just why he had resisted bragging by sitting on the giant throne, opening a basewide com channel and then starting a tirade just what he thought about his troops for abandoning him in his hour of need:

How could they do that to him?

They had destroyed his ingenious plan of heroically drawing the attention of the Prime on himself to buy his troops time to get away with the Energon or to attack the shocked enemies.

But instead they had laughed!

They had jeered!

They had put their own petty feelings and distasteful sort of pleasure before the glorious cause, before their hungry comrades and selfless commander.

How could they do that to him?

Just because of them they were now having to ration harshly to make the last drops of their storage last as long as possible while he, the poor, misjudged and wronged Starscream had to work his genius once again to lead them out of this horrible situation, hoping against hope that he would manage the impossible and work out a plan that even they couldn't mess up somehow.

While most Cons had droned Starscream's voice out after the first two seconds, his final words were a mean and effective wake-up call to all: "I guess it's no miracle it was so easy to kill Megatron in the end. With you morons as his army and guard the only way it would have been simpler to finally offline him would have been if he if he had shot himself out of desperation of having to work with you!"

Starscream smirked at hearing more than one growl emanating from the Cons in the command center, shutting the com off and lifting his wings high to show just how unafraid he was of the angered mechs. He sneered at everybody who dared to look in his direction and shoved a gloomy looking Soundwave roughly out of his way when the other mech partially blocked one of the consoles the Seeker wanted to work at. The taller mech obediently took a few steps to the side, but he continued to glower at his "Commander" from behind his only dimly lit visors, Ravage pressed against his legs and mirroring his glare.

Starscream only smirked in their direction, cleared his mind of all but the thought of Megatron's face when he had seen his SIC with his newest weapon standing in front of him and the realization that had dawned on the big silver mech's features that this time nothing and nobody, not even Soundwave, could save him from his certain fate.

Soundwave flinched as if struck, Ravage hissed, tensed and was then ordered to return into his Creator's chest – then the blue mech turned abruptly and strode stiffly out of the room, Starscream's laughter following him down the hall all the way to the Communication Officer's quarters.

Satisfied the Seeker turned to his console once again and opened a list of possible attack sites. Time to make a plan that would hopefully work.

* * *

When Starscream returned to his quarters in the evening, it was with a strangely satisfying feeling of accomplishment filling his Spark.

Thinking back to all the attempts of Megatron's life and rulership, he tried to remember when he had last felt so at peace with himself, his role in this war and the world at large, but he truly couldn't find an occasion that had him equally… happy? – to have contributed to the efforts of his faction.

Half out of a sudden onslaught of nostalgia, half out of true curiosity he thought even farther back, when it had only been the Autobots he had called his enemies and Megatron was an idol and comrade, perhaps even friend, instead of a constant thorn in his side. He had experienced this feeling of satisfaction then, to a degree, but never as strongly as he did right now – or when working with Skyfire in their cozy little lab, discovering new things while the rest of Cybertron and their bitter, jealous words and spiteful gazes could bite their shiny, metallic afts.

He sighed yearningly, then he froze, caught himself and shoved the sudden bout of uncharacteristic and severely unwanted melancholy out of his processor.

A tiny blinking light in the corner of one of his optics helped him to get rid of the last traces completely.

The Seeker rushed to his computer, ignoring the frightened yelp of a roughly awakened Sparkling under his desk, and eagerly devoured the results.

Figure after figure poured over the screen, a jumble of numbers and facts that even Soundwave would have problems making sense of. Starscream's processor on the other hand absorbed all the new information like a sponge, put it into relation with what it had known before, and fit them into half-thought out theories of what could have happened and spun whole webs of possibilities and probabilities most of the scientists once living in the Golden Age would have needed vorns to retrace, recreate and more importantly to simply _understand_. The holes of his webs of theory he filled with practical knowledge, with calculations and even more information stored away and working together to disregard hypothesis after hypothesis until only one remained.

When the Seeker slowly sank into the chair in front of the computer he knew exactly what had happened, why it had happened and how he could recreate it if need be.

It was… incredible.

Unbelievable.

_Utterly brilliant!_

It would have probably brought him lots of honor and mentions in scientific journals in the Golden Age, if not the prize of the Scientific Academy of Iacon itself.

For a moment Starscream allowed himself to dream of old times, of what Skyfire would have said, of what the other scientists would have said. He even tried to think of a few ways his discovery could have been put to use, perhaps to sentence criminals to lives as Sparklings and Younglings or to sell rich Alphas the possibility of a second, third, even fourth childhood whenever they wanted.

He couldn't help but shiver in fright and elation at the same time of what a true inventor, like Wheeljack, could have made once introduced to his discovery, because even Starscream, for all his brilliancy, had to admit that his strength lay in spontaneous bouts of complete enlightenment, light-years ahead of his peers, rather than day-to-day application of what he had just discovered.

A slight brush against his thruster brought him out of his stupor, but for once, he felt no ire at the tiny thing peering up at him out of wary red optics, only awe at his own accidental accomplishment and everything that resulted out of it.

"To think, that just a few differently connected wires, some other materials and two changed calculations would have resulted into a completely ordinary weapon." He mused, staring down at the Sparkling without really seeing him. "Instead I've managed to not only lock most of your mass into subspace, but to do the same to most of your Spark as well. And the chances, that per chance I used the correct power of the beam to effectively separate all layers of your Spark from its core instead of simply fragmenting it left and right until I would have been left with a drooling imbecile writhing on the floor in a mass of half-existant armor and melted joints…"

Starscream's processor almost locked up in an attempt to calculate the odds and he quickly changed to the next train of thought, his optics getting a definite gleam. "And to think, that such a fortunate accident would not even lead to me finally getting the position in this army that I deserve, but would allow me to also gain an understanding of one of the mysteries Cybertronian science has tried for ages to unravel and failed."

He jumped out of his chair, suddenly unable to sit still, and began to pace the length of the room instead, each of his maniacal sweeping gestures watched warily by the silver Sparkling peeking out from under the desk.

"I understand _everything_ now. Do you understand? _Everything_! I know… I don't know where to even start. I know how subspace is created, the forces at work for its creation, how to manipulate it further than all those idiots at Iacon would ever have dreamed of. Primus, I could probably recreate a device like Skywarp's teleport-ability if I wanted to. Or open portals into different dimensions! I could connect two completely unrelated mechs' subspace together and use it to transport messages or goods between them. Or… Oh Primus, I could even equip measly organics with crude mockery of true subspace if I really, truly wanted! Do you have any idea just what that means?"

Starscream spun around and beamed down at the Sparkling, his wings hiked up high and vibrating of elation, joy and excitement. Megatron hesitated for a moment, then he whined faintly for Energon, hoping that the good mood of his Caretaker would make him generous.

Instead it abruptly vanished when Starscream once again was reminded just why he had made this brilliant discovery to begin with. Formerly bright red optics sparkling with happiness and disbelief turned a darker shade of cruel calculation.

Two swift steps, a yelp and Megatron was dangling from harsh claws, trembling at the merciless face his captor wore. "I guess more than anything it means, that you've become useless to me now. I've learned all I could from you."

A slow smirk made its way over the dark grey lips as Starscream strode unhurriedly to a waste chute half hidden in a corner. It lead directly into the ocean outside of the base, in the deepest depth where nobody would ever find the crushed and lifeless remains of a tiny, silver Sparkling.

"Science thanks you for your troubles and sacrifices. You've really done the whole of Cybertron a great service. You will never be forgotten… Oh, who am I kidding. You will be, I'll make sure of that."

Starscream held the squealing and struggling Sparkling over the opened dark maw of the chute and grinned cruelly down at him. "Goodbye, mighty Megatron…"

* * *

"He's getting mightily full of himself, don't you think?"

A snort. "He always was. Megatron just beat him to a pulp before he could bore us with too much of it."

"True, true. Still, it's quickly becoming unbearable. We have to do something and fast."

"Yeah, the way it's going we'll all starve to death or run around doing the bidding of the Autobrats before long. Screamer's absolutely useless as a leader."

"Time for a change of management then."

"And how will we do that?"

A swish in the distance followed by a few, sure steps.

"Offer of assistance: I do have a few ideas…"

* * *

"**A short(?) introduction of the ****concept**** of Subspace", an extract from a general overview over Cybertronian science and scientific achievements by Skyfire given to a group of human scientists visiting the Ark:**

_[…]_

"_Where does Optimus Prime's trailer go when he transforms?"_

_To be honest, I've waited for this particular question the whole day. I've been told by my comrades that this is one of the most commonly asked question many people on various planets wonder about after the first excitement of meeting a completely new and strange species like ours has passed. _

_The most common answer in turn is an apprehensive muttering of "Subspace" followed by a hasty retreat before whoever has asked the question can even vocalize the natural follow-up: "What is subspace?"_

_This reaction has various reasons: Number one is, like already stated, that this question has been asked many times before and by now most of the Autobots have become tired of answering it over and over again. In fact, even the Twins – I'm sure you've been warned about them – prefer running to attempting to prank or mislead the questioner by now, having exhausted all of their ideas to use in this particular situation a long time ago._

_Fortunately for you and I, I haven't had yet the pleasure of repeating the explanation over and over again, so I will at least try to enlighten you on the subject._

_I deliberately used the word "try", for you see, reason number two most mechs have come to prefer running as their reaction of choice to such an innocent question is that most of them have roughly as much knowledge about the workings of subspace as you. Namely none._

_Subspace is something most of them think about as much as your species do about breathing. It's a part of their life and so they simply use it._

_And us few others, who know at least a little bit about the workings of such an amazing and unique peculiarity of our species, sadly have to admit that while we can at least vaguely tell "What" it is, we still only have some vague theories about many of its other aspects such as functioning, limits and creation, to name only a few examples._

_But back to the so simple seeming but yet so troubling question that manages to terrify most Autobots as Megatron never could: "What is subspace?"_

_I've recently read a few of your species' science fiction novels and, among many other amusing and sometimes ridiculous tidbits, discovered your still highly theoretical belief of the existence of alternative realities, other dimensions next to our own, so to speak. I'm honored to be the one to answer this question for you once and for all: Yes, there are other dimensions and alternate realities. Cybertronian scientists have proven so many times in the past._

_Before you celebrate though and ask for details, I'll have to disappoint you as well. Unfortunately most of those proofs were the results of lucky or unlucky experiments that had actually nothing to do with the search for a way into another dimension. A lot of them were about or used subspace though._

_I can see that a few of you seem to now entertain the notion that subspace actually is one of these alternate dimensions.  
I'm sorry if I confused you in this way, you will see why I seemingly misled you like this in just one moment. _

_Subspace isn't actually a dimension on its own._

Instead it is a space in the border between two of these alternate realities.

_I… Are you still following? I know this is confusing, it has been confusing Cybertronian scientists for eons and we're used to thinking in more dimensions than you are… Uhm, pardon the pun._

_You see, somehow – and there's where a lot of theories start but not a lot of facts exist – somehow our Sparks have the ability to influence the infinitesimal thin border between realities and sort of… stretch it, create a space inside it that we can actually access to store things._

_In fact our Spark partly _exists_ in subspace – some scientists and priests theorize that this is the way bonds between our kinds are even possible. They reason that our Sparks exist on our own plane of reality as well as in subspace. And they use this subspace, where actual limitations like distance, time etc. simply don't exist because, well, subspace _isn't _actually a dimension on its own…_

Well, anyway, they argue that because of that our Sparks use subspace to connect to others.

In fact they think that all Sparks that ever existed exist closely together in one or several versions of subspace and those that have bonds sort-of overlap each other. A few more frowned at scientists have even theorized that each Spark is connected to every other one, regardless of time in the real plane, at that all these Sparks together are the entity we call Primus. They think that Primus is not actually a god but the whole of all Sparks that did and will ever exist.

_Others believe that there actually is a Primus and that He's, well, living in subspace and connected to all our Sparks this way. Most mechs favor the theory, regardless of whether they believe the explanation on bonds or not, that Primus may have a connection to subspace as well and that, when our Sparks extinguish, they don't simply cease to exist but slip completely into subspace instead where Primus receives them and brings them to the Well of All Sparks._

_But, well, while interesting, it's all very theoretical and more suited for theoretical debates than more practical-minded scientists._

_Onward to more practical application of subspace then._

_Subspace enables every Cybertronian to store a limited amount of things depending on the strength of their Sparks.  
While a bigger Spark usually means that they have more power as well, that doesn't mean that bigger bots automatically have access to more subspace than their smaller counterparts. Both factors certainly influence each other to some degree but tests throughout the population in the Golden Age have shown that even "tiny" bots sometimes have a Spark-strength that grants them a truly amazing amount of subspace to use as they see fit. If you want I can introduce you to Cliffjumper later. He's a perfect example of a smaller mech with a very strong Spark and a fitting access to subspace._

_But back to its general uses._

Apart from storing various things, some more or less accidental discoveries have enabled us Cybertronians to transfer mass and part of our bodies or alt-forms to subspace as well, resulting in mechs like Perceptor, Blaster and even Megatron whose remarkable size-difference in true and alt-form should be well known to you. Triple-changers like Blitzwing and Astrotrain are based on the same mechanics by the way.

_Another advantage of our access to subspace is our self-repair system._

_Some of you may have wondered in the past how it is possible for us to repair even the most gruesome damage through only Ratchet's admittedly phenomenal care and abilities and the intake of Energon. From a purely logistical view-point it should be impossible: Where do we get the materials from that we need to replicate the alloys that make up our armor or inner circuitry?_

_Through supplements in our Energon? Through Ratchet's repairs?_

_Partially._

But most of what we need we generate ourselves.

Our Sparks somehow are able to reach into subspace and either draw atoms through the thin barrier between the alternate dimensions or neurons, electrons and protons exit freely in the space in-between. Either way, they change whatever they draw into themselves through a mixture of nuclear fusion, nuclear fission and other only partially known reactions in whatever our bodies need and either use the resulting radiation as extra energy to keep themselves alive or diffuse it back into subspace where we can't keep track of it any longer.

_I see that some of you are clearly intrigued, but unfortunately I have to inform you that this process isn't recreatable through other means at this point of time. Believe me, we tried. If our species as a whole would have known how the create materials and energy by using subspace alone, perhaps this whole war would have never happened…_

_Or would have been even more gruesome than it already is now, we will never know._

_But back to our original topic._

_Naturally our ability to access subspace isn't always advantageous, given that it means that less well-meaning individuals can store whole armories away to use whenever they see fit. It was a great problem for a long time how to deal with and contain criminals if there was the danger that they would pull out a lock-pick, a weapon or worse out of subspace the moment nobody was looking. In the beginning of our society punishments therefore consisted almost always of either forced stasis or death, a rather barbaric practice but sadly necessary all the same._

_A lot of the research in those dark times naturally dealt with the problem of how to block the access to subspace._

Eventually the mechanics how to temporarily - and only temporarily, even now, otherwise the process will have lethal consequences - neutralize our inborn ability without immediately extinguishing the Spark of the affected bot were discovered, resulting in a in a slightly less deadly and merciless justice system. But even then, this newfound way to hinder criminals from escaping and harming innocents wasn't enough, given that it only worked for a certain period of time before the block had to be lifted or the convict's life was at a serious risk.

_The true breakthrough was when a team of scientist led by the famous…_

Uh, I guess the designation won't mean anything to you, but, I have to admit, he was something of my hero and inspiration when I attended the science academy myself, so excuse my enthusiasm – anyway, after long research a team of scientists finally developed devices that enabled mechs and femmes with a higher sensitivity towards Spark energy and electric fields than most to access other mechs' subspace and to transfer whatever they had stored there back into our dimension.

There are still records from that time that prove that the whole of Cybertron was ecstatic upon this discovery and that the justice system underwent a mayor overhaul – only to have to change again once blueprints of said devices showed up in the public datastreams, enabling everybody with the necessary Spark sensitivity to access whoever's subspace they wanted. Naturally the next step for scientists everywhere was how to solve this problem, but up to now no definitive solution has been found and I've been told that it was and is a constant race against the Decepticon scientists to stay one step of each other in this regard.

_A less commonly known but very interesting fact is that among the many (at first) disregarded discoveries made while searching for the way to access foreign subspace was the way to fold time and space. _

_Yes, you understood right._

_Without even realizing it they discovered the theories and mechanics that once, hundreds of vorns later, would be the basis for our modern day spacebridges. And before you ask, no, unfortunately I'm not authorized to explain this particular technical miracle to you in further detail. Not that I could, honestly._

_My strengths simply lie in different fields than highly theoretical space and time mechanics or the engineering part of this impressive bit of technology. You'd have to ask Wheeljack or Perceptor instead, or perhaps Shockwave, Starscream or even Scrapper on the Decepticon-side – though I doubt they'd be inclined to answer you._

_What?_

Yes… Yes, these rumors are true. Starscream and I were partners once.  
We researched and explored together until an accident resulted in me being frozen for millions of years. 

…

_Yes, he was actually good at what he did, believe it or not._

In fact he was looking into the possibilities of subspace right before we left for our ill-fated mission. He had the theory that it would be possible to "fold" subspace into itself or to part the barriers between actual dimension and subspace once again, to more or less recreate the effect that created subspace to begin with. If he had been successful mechs from the size of say, Cliffjumper, would have been able to effortlessly store things from the size of Omega Supreme away.

_Yes, I admit, the image is funny. And yes, I also agree that Cliffjumper truly doesn't need a reason to develop even more of an ego.  
I'm sorry for what happened earlier. He can be rather thoughtless and abrasive but he truly means well and has a good Spark._

_What?_

_...No, I don't know if Starscream was ever successful.  
We were separated before he truly started to experiment and now… we're not exactly on speaking terms anymore, if you know what I mean…_

_Is it possible to actually store living things in subspace?_

Um, I have to admit, I'm not actually sure. I know that Beachcomber and Percy – I mean, Perceptor – usually transport plants and samples in subspace when they have to keep their hands free, but I'm not sure if they ever actually subspaced something of higher intelligence let alone true sentience.  
If you could please wait a moment…

…

_Thank you for your patience._

I've asked them and no, they haven't tried yet and are vehemently against experimenting on actual living specimens until they are actually sure that it won't be harmful to the subspaced party. I agree with them on that. Even on Cybertron most scientists shied away from testing any of their theories regarding this particular question. The only possible exception I could think of would be Shockwave but I guess if you actually would be in the situation to ask him about it, you would probaby find yourself subspaced rather than get a straight answer out of him…

_The generally accepted theory though is that whatever enters subspace is basically taken out of the normal time continuity and therefore basically frozen in time. Nobody knows though how that would affect a living being less durable than a plant or microorganism – especially if its actual functioning is so closely tied to perfectly timed bodily functions and constant in- and outside stimulation as in both of our species. We could end up frozen in time for the duration, dead or fully aware of the experience and slowly going insane, so no, we won't test what would happen anytime soon._

_Any other questions?_

_Ah, yes, I should have expected that we would come back to that, given how fascinated your species seems to be with the concept._

How did we prove that there are actually other dimensions? 

_Well, naturally I don't know every single experiment resulting in not what was expected but an unwanted peek into what's behind the veil, so to speak._

But I know that many of those accidental discoveries happened when the actual objective of the experiment was either something related to spacebridge technology or teleporting – no, we can't recreate Skywarp's ability, we've tried and it baffles us as to how it is possible. It's actually using subspace in some way other than a normal spacebridge, but how it really works, nobody knows – or when somebody tried to expand or to affect subspace in any way.

And I know that whatever happened usually resulted in a catastrophe of some kind, more often than not killing some of the scientists involved.  
I'm not sure if that is because we aren't meant to look beyond our own universe of if the safety measures taken simply couldn't deal with whatever happened.

_Anyway , our first suspicions regarding the existence of alternate dimensions were based on something that actually happens to more than seventy percent of all Cybertronians at least once in their lives: One day, while searching their subspace for something they need, they suddenly encounter an item they've never actually put there and have never seen before._

_Yes, exactly the expression I can see on your faces right now is usually their reaction as well._

Naturally the opposite case happens sometimes as well. Something goes missing for days on end only to show up again some time later exactly where it's supposed to be, in subspace, where the affected bot searched at least dozens of times before.

_Anyway, such things happened simply so often that in the end it was concluded that sometimes the barriers between dimensions get thin enough that items stored in subspace cross over into the subspace of another reality's version of the affected Cybertronian, either through overlapping or through other means.  
The accidental discoveries only strengthened that theory._

By now the general advice for a similar situation is to simply put back whatever you found – your other self could need it back after all - and to wait until everything is normal again. 

_Have I ever found something in my subspace myself?_

… _Yes_

…Yes, I did.

…_No, I'm alright, thank you for asking._

The memory of the incident is just a little bit… disconcerting to say the least.  
Not because it happened, no. It's a rather common occurrence after all.

It's more… the nature of the item I found.

I can't think of a reason why I would normally carry something like that with me at all times, so… I have to admit, the thought of a universe in which I do is rather… frightening to me.

…

_Frightening indeed…_

_[…]_

* * *

_**AN: My take on the Cybertronian scientists:**_

_Before anybody begins accusing me of blatant favoritism for "Starscream, the genius" (The accusation would be probably more than a bit true, but still), I actually put some thought behind the different natures of the Cybertronian scientists shown in G1: how they work, research things and get results.  
They are all brilliant, hands down – just not everybody in the same way and each of them have their own strengths and weaknesses._

_There's Percy, who's greatest strength and weakness is his obsessive hyper-focus.  
He's a walking, talking lexicon of knowledge and he has enough patience and curiosity to spend vorns analyzing and studying one single thing until he knows basically all there is to it and how it could be of use in any way – at least until he's somehow pointed at something else to go all "Whee, shiny!" once again and forget all about whatever had his attention first._

_Shockwave is similar in the regard that he has great knowledge of a lot if not all fields.  
He's extremely focused as well but more conscious of when the effort he puts into his research just doesn't fit the benefits he gains from it.  
It's only logical to be efficient after all.  
Generally his projects tend to follow the same ulterior motive: He wants to make things (and bots) more efficient and effective and doesn't stop if he leaves the boundaries of morality behind._

_Then there's Beachcomber and sometimes Seaspray, depending on who you ask, and perhaps even Hoist, Grapple, the Constructicons and Ratchet to some degree as well. They all are experts in their chosen field of expertise and happy with it, but just as clueless about something outside of it as the rest of it._

_Soundwave I see as a sort-of scientist by necessity rather than by choice.  
He'd rather concentrate on being the Communications Officer and the TIC but given that his superior has a nasty temper and no patience and the scientists in his faction are Cons with their own individual attitude problems it's better for everyone involved if he acts as the inbetween and he knows enough of everything to at least be able to tell what's going on, if there's a real problem or if somebody's bullshitting him. _

_Next in line is Wheeljack, who I regard as a true scientist only if he has to be and more of an inventor and engineer by choice.  
He's more interested in the practical day-to-day uses of science than the theory behind it. He cares more about the fact that it works at all than why it does.  
Usually he's the happiest tinkering away at whatever strikes his fancy, flitting between projects as long as nothing can really capture his interest for more than a few days. He's the one you go to if you truly need something. Wheeljack will probably explode a few times on his way to the needed gimmick but in the end he will present you with a working version even if everybody but himself will marvel at how he has done it in the first place and he probably will be unable to explain it properly without one of the other scientists taking his machine apart to understand it for themselves._

_Starscream is another jack-of-all-trades like Percy and Shockwave. Unlike them though he has no patience at all.  
He's a researcher, inventor and engineer all in one but simply hasn't the necessary focus to stay with one of the fields and dominate it.  
His quicksilver mind is his greatest strength and his greatest curse._

_It's constantly working and therefore everything that takes longer than a few days or weeks or has no interesting, world-changing challenge behind it bores him easily and gets never truly completed. At the same time, given that his processor is collecting and connecting information all the time and creating and rejecting theories at unfathomable speeds he sometimes has moments of true brilliance that opens up to him a whole new field of science just like it happened in this chapter._

Things click into place and he understands_._

Not only simple things like getting five percent more performance if he changes this or that component but whole new areas of science nobody ever considered possible before other than in their wildest dreams.

_And exactly therein starts his problem._

He_ knows that it is all possible and even why and how it is.  
But nobody else does._

_And so he's excited, __waiting __ for the other scientists to bow to his brilliance and praise his marvelous processor while the rest of the world either tries to catch up or simply dismisses his ideas as impossible fantasies not worth looking into. _

_A frustrating situation for everybody involved, especially because Starscream isn't ready to go back and explain everything from step one when he's already at step 283 and 'knows that it works, fraggit.'_

_And when the first scientists finally reach the stage in which they slowly prove through experiments the truths that Starscream has recognized ages ago through his mind alone, our dear Seeker has long since lost interest in the whole field and switched focus at least five times again.  
Until the next stroke of brilliance makes itself known and the whole frustrating mess starts again._

_And, last but certainly not least, there's Skyfire.  
I see him as more research-oriented than truly building or inventing things. He probably left the engineering to Starscream, knowing that when his partner had to concentrate on fitting tiny mechanical parts together he at least wouldn't be bored quite as quickly as usual. Skyfire in turn would have taken over any longtime experiments, waiting for results and handling the watching of slow chemical reactions._

_Also he would have probably enough faith in Starscream and experience with his unpredictability to actually believe his suddenly emerging, sometimes outlandish theories and to try to slowly and steadily get to the point Starscream already is. He doesn't always succeed in time to stop his partner from becoming frustrated with the slow, slow world but given that he's good at what he does, he actually believes that whatever he's trying to prove is possible and can convince the other scientist to give him pointers when he's stuck, he usually gets his fair share of the recognition when the rest of the scientific world finally 'sees the light'._

_I consider him actually the most easiest scientist to be around and a rather balanced individual._

He's even-tempered, intelligent, patient and focused without the danger of losing himself completely in his research.  
_Given who his former partner is, he is able to tolerate more extreme personalities as well as being bound to be a force to be reckoned with himself should there ever be the need of one. __Skyfire points Percy in the right direction, provides general translations for both sides and explanations to Wheeljack's latest invention and gives the less scientific minded mechs a fresh breath of "normal" in the rather crazy and confusing lab.  
_


End file.
